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P.S. Constantinople Nov. 25 Friday evening. This letter consists of two sheets I have no time to read over either of them
On board the Mary Frances at Sea Tuesday Oct 11 1785
The business of the day has been the passing the straight
which separates Sicily from the peninsula of Italy, and a
fine day for it it was impossible to have had. It is the
only day I have been alive since we left Leghorn. We
slackened sail last night for fear of being caught in bad
weather in the night time in a narrow sea which is
flanked mostly by a bold shores especially on the Italian side, and is
not always in so peaceable a state as that in which
we found it. The straight is neither quite so narrow nor so
long as I expected to find it. Every body however agrees
that at the narrowest it can not be more than a league
and it continues at nearly the same width for some
miles; a sufficient length to exhibit an infinite variety
of objects on both shores at within a very discernible distance.
On the Sicilian side the only town that presents
itself to view is the remnant of Messina: with
the assistance of glasses and in some places without we
could plainly discern a multitude of stately buildings
not yet recover'd from the ravages of the Earthquake.
Some of them appeared in a condition of transparency
the roof being off, and the windows void of glass, if
ever they were provided, which the generality of the
buildings in this warm region seem not to be, with that
luxurious accommodation. Many were plainly to be seen
propped up with shores. Brydone I think speaks of the
principal range of buildings that the Key as being
semicircular and extending a matter of a mile. If so
doubt the devastation must have been vast indeed, for this
superb range has at present but little curvature in its
appearance though the distance from which we saw
it would not be more than half a league, and I
should not guess the extent of it at more than 1/4 or
a 1/3 of a mile. It is still however a very considerable
town, and the environs of it for miles of at each end
are richly with villages. A great number of
the houses and other buildings both in the town and in
the villages have sprung up since the earthquake. On
the Calabrian (Italian) shore the towns though not so
large are more numerous; the shore on this side especially
very bold and the ground thrown, probably by earthquakes
of a date infinitely beyond anterior to all history
or even pretended history, thrown into a thousand romantic
forms. The general altitude of the coast seems to be two or three
times as considerable as that of Dover Cliffs, and in
several places near within 1/3 or a 1/4th of the summit
you see a town stuffed into a cleft in a rock, or
stuck upon the point of one. What they do for fresh water
the Lord above knows; not the least drop have any of us
been able to discover in all Sicily, though we have had
views more or less near of little less than 2/3ds of its circumference,
nor in all that part of Calabria, though
that part of the peninsula that stretches the Island pretty
considerably. As for Etna we have seen it in three
several directions from so many different sides of the
Island, reckoning the short portion which forms the straight
as
one, in addition to the three longer ones which alone
are taken account in the general idea of its form
from which it obtained the sur name of Trinaevia in
addition to its other appellations. The side which fronts
you as you approach the island from the gulph of
Genoa is that from which Etna is at the farthest
distance, yet though the sea is skirted all along with
lofty mountains, Etna is plainly seen on the other
side overtopping them all. When an observation by a
quadrant shewe'd it at 66 miles distance, we could
plainly see the smoke issuing from it in torrents which
though at that vast distance they seemed to be slow
must have been of vast rapidity to have been at all prohibit any
question
at such a distance. Knowing
how large an island Sicily is, how many mighty
states it formerly contained in classic times, and
how considerable a figure it still makes on the map,
I could not help wondering to observe that by far
the greater part of it if not the whole could be taken
by the eye not only in the course of one days navigation,
but in great measure at one view. From this and other
specimens that have occurred in the course of this short
part that has already elapsed of our short navigation,
our little globe has lost a vast deal of the space
that it had been used to fill in my conception. At
one and the same view for instance I could take in
all the little islands you see marked in the map under
the name of the Lipari islands, together with a
great part of the Italian shore mostly to the
perhaps in Naples, and one of the sides of the Sicilian
triangle. In like manner one and the same
glance presented me with Corsica, Sardinia and
the corresponding part of the Italian peninsula. Of the
Lipari Islands Strombolo ought to have treated us with an
illumination: it is said to be generally in that state:
unfortunately it happened to have nothing better to entertain
us with than a little smoke of which we had got a
quantum sufficient from Etna. We however got a
reasonable whiff of sulphur from one of its neighbours.
On both shores the country seemed to be cultivated
wherever it was level enough to admitt of cultivation.
As to Scylla and Charybdis, all our diligence
could not discover any objects that exhibited any traces
of having been ever endowed with any of the properties
attributed in days of yore to those celebrated
bugbears. Brydone I think has very satisfactorily accounted
for their disappearance. The straights however
from other causes are not always without their
danger: the narrowness of the passage, with the shallowness
of the water in some parts in the Calabrian
side, these circumstances added to the accidental conflicts
of winds and currents are sufficient to produce that effect
without the help of monsters. As it was we saw and traversed
a number of little spots which at a less favourable
conjunction I was told by the learned might have been dangerous whirlpools
These were little smooth spaces which in the
middle
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